Cloud and microservices help Expedia innovate quickly

Twenty years since Expedia launched and helped transform the travel booking industry, the ability to innovate rapidly remains vital to its success. In a highly competitive market this requires a modern and agile IT environment, says Elizabeth Eastaugh, Expedia’s director of technology.

“At Expedia we don’t build massive projects,” Eastaugh tells ComputerworldUK. “We will build the minimum viable product and get so much analytics back we can decide if we are going to go forward with [a new product]. So we are not building huge code monoliths that we just can’t change direction in.”

Part of Expedia’s IT strategy has been to place more of its applications in Amazon Web Service’s public cloud. One of the benefits has been the opportunity to overhaul some of its larger applications, breaking the software down into smaller segments, or microservices, that are easier to manage.

One example is its Checkout online payment function, which Eastaugh is directly responsible for.

Currently the Checkout application – which supports billions of pounds of transactions – has a huge number of features, says Eastaugh. This results in “a hundred thousand automation tests”, slowing development down and making continuous integration and delivery of software difficult.